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“No, I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said in a brief interview about whether he’d ever run again. “I’d just have to see what’s right for me and my family at the time. … For future politics, I don’t know what it holds, but if there’s a possibility that the people want me to do another political office, again, maybe I’ll do it.”

After a local newspaper posted surveillance footage of the married Louisiana Republican embracing a former staffer last month, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Pelican state leaders called on him to resign.

McAllister announced he wouldn’t run for his seat again, but his comments now suggest he might someday try to borrow a page from other fallen pols who’ve bounced back from salacious scandals — a surprisingly achievable goal in an era when a politician’s most private problems go viral quickly.

He has a strong friend and mentor on the subject in Sen. David Vitter (R), who famously survived a prostitution scandal. Vitter, who hails from the same state and was one of the first lawmakers to visit McAllister in his Capitol digs when he started his gig last winter, was a source of encouragement during McAllister’s recent rough patch.

“We talked a couple times by phone and through text message and [his message] was just support: like, ‘Keep your head up,’ ‘Thinking about you and your family,’ ‘I know times are tough,’ that kind of stuff… that this is not the end of the world,” McAllister told POLITICO.

He got the same sort of support from perhaps his most famous constituents: the superstars of A&E series “Duck Dynasty,” who live in his district and endorsed him on the campaign trail.

They were one of McAllister’s first calls after the news broke of the footage. He phoned Willie Robertson, his date for the State of the Union earlier this year, and recounted their conversation in a sitdown with KTVE/KARD that aired this week: “Put politics in the back seat and take care of your family first… We’re you’re friends and we still love you,” Robertson said, according to McAllister.

McAllister has three months to change his mind about running for re-election for his seat. The filing deadline is not until late August.

He told POLITICO he’s not interested right now: “For this race, I’m not a candidate… I have to think of my family.”

Still, he’s doing a lot of things scandal-scarred politicians would as they gear up for a comeback. This week he gave his first tell-all interview to a local TV crew back in his district, spilling about his rocky marriage, laying bare the fact that his wife caught him cheating two months before the scandal even broke and discussing how they’re rebuilding their relationship.

He’s also trying to make amends with constituents through apologies and is avoiding personal attacks on the person in his office who leaked the video in the first place.

Above all, he’s vocalizing his regret and vowing that he’s learned his lesson.

“I thank God for it because it brought me to my knees,” McAllister told POLITICO after votes on Tuesday, referring to his scandal as a “teaching moment” and one of the “greatest lessons in my life.”

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who told lawmakers to layoff McAllister at the height of the scandal and chided those who called for his resignation, is one.

“You have enough hypocrites up here that they ought to not sit in judgment,” Richmond said outside the Capitol Building Tuesday night. “I am sure this is not the first time this has happened to a member of Congress. It’s not right; it shouldn’t happen. However … I’m sure he was catching all that he could catch at home, and that’s not for us to judge.”

McAllister said several lawmakers told him he was too hasty to announce that he wouldn’t run again — though he wouldn’t say whom. Most told him to take care of his family first.

“Nobody came to me and said that’s fine, what you did,” he chuckled off the House floor just after votes. “But they know life is life and when you’re in the public eye it seems to make it worse. But one thing I have found out through this is many people have the same struggles. We’re all human.”

Should he run again and succeed, McAllister would join a growing group of lawmakers who have survived publicly embarrassing sex scandal. Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) went on to win a House seat after having an extramarital affair with his Argentinian mistress; Vitter not only won re-election after his phone number linked him to a D.C. prostitution ring but is now seeking the Louisiana governorship; and of course there’s Bubba, Monica Lewinsky and that whole blue dress drama.

But plenty of promiscuous politicians have failed their comebacks, too, including Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the infamous sex-ter who lost the New York mayoral race.

McAllister, who won a whopping 60 percent of the vote in a special election last year, found himself in the dog house about six weeks ago when someone in his office leaked a video of him kissing his district scheduler, also married.